Our Annual Round-Up of Hangover Helpers*

Hangovers are a part of serious imbibing, as we were unpleasantly reminded the morning after our punch party last week. With New Years Eve nearly upon us, we wanted to offer a brief round up of strategies to help you cope the morning after:

Preventative Measures
As Pink Gin says, “You need to plan on the possibility that you’ll skip the night-before remedy. If you remember it, do you really need it?” Make these suggestions your mantra during the day while sober and you just may remember to follow them later in the evening:

Slow Your Roll Early: Have some nice, low alcohol sips in mind when you belly up to the bar. Cocktails made with low-alcohol liqueurs, like a Campari & soda, vermouth-based Half Sinner, Half Saint, or a San Francisco can keep you from getting too drunk too fast.

Water, water, water: Just do it. A glass between drinks is a good metric.

Eat. A Lot.: Eat a healthy portion of your dinner, even if you’re feeling full from all the water you’re drinking. You body will thank you. And, depending on how late you stay up, a second dinner might be appropriate.

Herbal Remedies as a Preemptive Strike: Take milk thistle before you start drinking (for your liver), B12 & B6 (for your hangover). One LUPEC pal swears by activated carbon pills: 2 with the first drink, one per each additional drink. All can be purchased at Whole Foods.

Morning-After Measures
Upon waking, you will likely need to ease into your day with a hearty breakfast, coconut water, ginger ale or beer, and a healthy dose of Advil. As Charles H. Baker writes of the “sort of human withering on the vine” that is the hangover in The Gentleman’s Companion, (repubbed as Jigger, Beaker, and Glass), the “Picker-Upper” is the only possible cure for when you feel “precisely like Death warmed up”: “We have…come to distrust all revivers smacking of drugdom. It is a small, tightly vicious cycle to get into, and a bit of well-aged spirits with this or that, seems much safer and more pleasant than corroding our innards with chemicals of violent proclivities, and possible habit-forming ways.”

After all, there are just two proven ways to never get a hangover: never start drinking or never stop. Once you’re ready for a little hair of the dog, any of these recipes should do:

Andy McNees’ Hangover Eraser Nos 1 & 2: For the original, build the following over ice in a pint glass: A shot of Fernet, two dashes of every kind of bitters on the bar, top with Soda water. Drink as quickly as you can through two straws like a Mind Eraser. See below for recipe No. 2.

Bloody Marys: There’s a good amount of vitamins in that there tomato juice.

Fizzes: During the pre-Prohibition heyday of the cocktail, the fizz held forth as the hangover cure de rigeur for sporting men. “Into the saloon you’d go, the kindly internist behind the bar would manipulate a bottle or two, and zam! There stood the glass packed with vitamins, proteins, and complex sugars, foaming brightly and aglow with the promise of sweet release,” writes David Wondrich in Imbibe! If you’ve never tried a Pink Lady before, now’s the time.

Good luck to you, dear readers! As Virginia Elliot and Phil D. Strong wrote in their 1930 volume Shake ‘Em Up, always remember to “Take cheer from the thought that if you are healthy enough to suffer acutely, you will probably live.”